What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[KizuyaKatogami]

Only one FF game ended with the world being destroyed (FFVI). Only FFVII was bold enough to kill off a main character and never replace them (FFVI had a huge ensemble cast; some of the ones that can optionally die, like Shadow, didn't really affect the story much). Compared to most games in the series, FFXIV is pretty deep and nuanced.

FFVI and FFVII are the mainline games everybody thinks of when they talk about how "bold" FF games used to be (along with Tactics), but they were exceptions and not the rule.

4 killed off Tellah and didn’t really replace him. 2 killed off numerous characters like Minwu but i guess they’re more “guest characters.” 5 had a main character death as well but he does get replaced by krile i guess. 6 the world got destroyed and magic got sucked out of the world. 7 all of humanity became extinct after the events of the game. 12 had magic sucked out of the world like 6 and numerous places got nuked etc etc. It’s just weird to me that 14 refuses to be bold whatsoever.

[aveyond-dreams]

Following on from the above, FFXVI at least seems to be taking things back in the bold direction. Clive is presented as a tragic hero driven by revenge, and Joshua's face literally gets splattered with his father's blood in the trailer.

Even FFIX had a very emotionally involved story despite its initial cartoonish look to it. Let the slice of life writers go work on the FFXIV high school manga, because I do not have confidence in them carrying us through Season 2.

[CrownySuccubus]

4 killed off Tellah and didn’t really replace him. 2 killed off numerous characters like Minwu but i guess they’re more “guest characters.” 5 had a main character death as well but he does get replaced by krile i guess. 6 the world got destroyed and magic got sucked out of the world. 7 all of humanity became extinct after the events of the game. 12 had magic sucked out of the world like 6 and numerous places got nuked etc etc. It’s just weird to me that 14 refuses to be bold whatsoever.

Tellah never really gave me the impression of a "main character". He felt more to me like a vehicle for Edward's character progression.

Humanity does NOT go extinct in 7. That was a common fan theory that has been debunked, especially by the fact that sequels exist.

The outcome of the world of XII isn't even close to devastating, especially given the fact that it's officially a prequel to Tactics.

Again, compared to MOST of the series, FFXIV is A1 Bold and Spicy.

[CrownySuccubus]

I'm not speaking only of deaths, in which case there were two of the main cast regardless of whether or not one could be undone with a lot of effort in a terribly written sequel. (The gameplay was fun though.) Much like LotR where only one member of the Fellowship died (permanently), but most of the others went through a lot. Meanwhile, I've got Thancred complaining about how he doesn't have a single scar to brag about at the end of all things. :P

This argument only really applies to Endwalker specifically, which isn't really a fair comparison.

Endwalker was more applicable to, like, the "Disc 3/4" content of a PS1-era game. We've already been through most of these characters' emotional journeys. I'm not arguing with the fact that Endwalker was rather "toothless" in how it challenged or harmed its main characters, but it's not really comparable to judging an entire story and the growth of its characters from start to finish.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Tellah never really gave me the impression of a "main character". He felt more to me like a vehicle for Edward's character progression.

Humanity does NOT go extinct in 7. That was a common fan theory that has been debunked, especially by the fact that sequels exist.

The outcome of the world of XII isn't even close to devastating, especially given the fact that it's officially a prequel to Tactics.

Again, compared to MOST of the series, FFXIV is A1 Bold and Spicy.

If youre going to make a statement at least back it up with proof. Here's an interview with the ff7 dev.

At the very end of FFVII, we see the epilogue to the whole story that takes place 500 years later, so really, you still have another 497 years' worth of games and movies to fill in....
YK: Ha, maybe I'll try to do that. In a way, I consider that epilogue to be the true happy ending of FFVII. Well, it's a happy ending even though all the human beings are destroyed. [Laughs]

So yeah...humanity is destroyed. 12 ending is incredibly devastating. Non human races slowly being rendered extinct due to the loss of magic? sounds pretty bad to me.They even touch on this in 12-2.
So no, id say compared to most of the series 14 isnt bold and spicy. Maybe in ARR and HW maybe even SB, but ShB and forward it most certainly isnt.

[Theodric]

FFXII's my favourite of the single player games overall, even accounting for some of the development problems it endured. It was refreshing on many fronts - not only did it avoid the mind numbingly boring 'EMPIRE BAD, EMPIRE DESTROYED' trope it did have a lot of consequences within the story itself - some of which played out when piecing together the stories of the other games set in the Ivalice universe. Personally I'd consider the loss of advanced technology, magic shifting into a rarity and the extinction of numerous races to be quite the catastrophe. To say nothing of Ivalice's decline into the equivalent of the dark ages.

It was actually Matsuno's writing that got me to look at JRPG's in the first place, to be honest - and FFXIV seemed to be taking a lot of inspiration from the Ivalice games on many fronts before shifting towards the visual novel style it now actively flirts with.

[Caurcas]

I do kind of wish XIV kept more if its XII tone it had back in the SB days.

[CrownySuccubus]

If youre going to make a statement at least back it up with proof. Here's an interview with the ff7 dev.

At the very end of FFVII, we see the epilogue to the whole story that takes place 500 years later, so really, you still have another 497 years' worth of games and movies to fill in....
YK: Ha, maybe I'll try to do that. In a way, I consider that epilogue to be the true happy ending of FFVII. Well, it's a happy ending even though all the human beings are destroyed. [Laughs]

So yeah...humanity is destroyed. 12 ending is incredibly devastating. Non human races slowly being rendered extinct due to the loss of magic? sounds pretty bad to me.They even touch on this in 12-2.
So no, id say compared to most of the series 14 isnt bold and spicy. Maybe in ARR and HW maybe even SB, but ShB and forward it most certainly isnt.

Ah yes, the interview in which Kitase was promoting the release of Advent Children, the official sequel to FFVII.

So, what does Tetsuya Nomura have to say?

Nomura: The shot of Midgar that appears in that particular sequence was FFVII’s greener version of Midgar, 500 years in the future. It symbolizes people returning to living aboveground. (….) So it’s a story where in the end, people go back to living aboveground, choosing a life closer to nature.

If youre going to make a statement at least back it up with proof.

All you had to do was ask.

12 ending is incredibly devastating. Non human races slowly being rendered extinct due to the loss of magic? sounds pretty bad to me.They even touch on this in 12-2.

This is, like, bog standard for most FF games save for, say, the first five and IX, then. They always start or end with most non-human species dying. Hell, even FFXIII-3 ended with the literal destruction of the entire world and everyone waking up in what seems like the "real" world, implying that all magic and non-human beings also died in that one.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Ah yes, the interview in which Kitase was [b]promoting the release of Advent Children, the official sequel to FFVII.

So, what does Tetsuya Nomura have to say?






All you had to do was ask.

Ah so they had to do damage control lol. In that case either definition could be true, regardless though it doesn’t change the overall point. 7 was easily darker than 14 in almost every aspect. Between the plates falling, actual impactful character death etc.

This is, like, bog standard for most FF games save for, say, the first five and IX, then. They always start or end with most non-human species dying. Hell, even FFXIII-3 ended with the literal destruction of the entire world and everyone waking up in what seems like the "real" world, implying that all magic and non-human beings also died in that one.

Well if its the standard why is 14 exempt from it and all the consequences like this? Even the final days didnt leave any impactful changes to the zones or cities.

[CrownySuccubus]

7 was easily darker than 14 in almost every aspect. Between the plates falling, actual impactful character death etc.

I already said this. VI and VII are the darkest the mainline series has ever gotten, though FFXV comes damn close.

Well if its the standard why is 14 exempt from it and all the consequences like this? Even the final days didnt leave any impactful changes to the zones or cities.

It....doesn't? The Garleans almost go completely extinct in Endwalker alone.

Throughout the rest of FFXIV proper, the last of the Ancients goes extinct, the dragons are heavily endangered, with few of the First Brood remaining, Thavnair loses an unspecified number of its people, countless races on The First are extinct or barely hanging on by a thread (I guess we can count that as happening in the game itself, since the Flood of Light was an HW event), and I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of stuff. (EDIT: Yeah, like the Umbral Calamity that literally changed the entire world -- the entire impetus between 1.0 and 2.0.)

But, for the long answer, FFXIV being a live service games makes it practically impossible for there to be heavy, long-term consequences to the world at large. The basic framework of the setting needs to be the same for new players as well as people who've completed the latest patch. Would be kinda awesomely tragic if you couldn't, say, pick Roegadyn anymore after some event in the game made them basically extinct as a species, but it would also be horribly unfair.